Given that so many IBM customers make their initial software purchases in the fourth quarter of the calendar year (when the IBM pricing gets really aggressive), the number of DB2 customers whose annual software license subscription and support is due each December is higher than in any other month of the year.  For this reason we’ve decided to deliver another webinar on the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) bundle in hopes of persuading renewing DB2 customers to consider the upgrade.  AESE has provided substantial value to every upgrading customer we’ve worked with, and enabled their IT organization to better monitor, utilize, and extend the use of their database. 

Frank Fillmore will deliver the webinar on Monday, November 19th from 11am – 12pm EST.  Register HERE.

The invitation, in case you didn’t receive one directly from me (!) –

If your organization’s DB2 license Subscription and Support is scheduled to renew in December, now is the time to learn about the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) product bundle and how you can finesse the upgrade JUST BEFORE paying IBM the annual Subscription and Support fee to make it VERY affordable. Read More…

I submitted this blog post to the IOD blog (IOD blog) as I was leaving the conference:

At this year’s Information On Demand conference I had the pleasure to catch up with three IBMers who have endorsed, supported and yes, tolerated The Fillmore Group in various ways for many years. Each of these three wonderful IBMers announced their participation in the IBM “Road to Retirement” program and shared some of their post-IBM plans. I wish them all the very best, while at the same time am saddened to see such talented and dedicated experts leave IBM.

Sandy Ovard has been working as Business Partner liaison to Lab Services and has helped us navigate the increasingly complex Lab Services partner engagement process. As we depend on Lab Services for a portion of our services business, Sandy has had the frequently unpleasant job of soliciting Business Partner feedback and addressing issues. Her patience and consistent willingness to pitch in will be missed.

Holly Hayes is one of the SVL development superstars who has worked with a number of technologies. Holly is one of the few “surf and turf” people who fully understand the most technical of technical subjects and has the communication skills to explain them to those non-techies, like me, who need analogies and pictures to understand. I am have been surprised – and amazed – on more than one occasion when I hear about a customer that struggled with a new product implementation and hear, “and then I got Holly involved,” and invariably, things smooth out.

Finally, David Tolleson. David has been the replication and federation Product Manager and a tireless promoter of these solutions. David has blogged, responded to endless emails, and enthusiastically supported a niche technology that enables some of the world’s largest IT shops to meet those 24X7 uptime SLA’s. He has worked with a team that is not only technically capable, but fun to work with.

Good luck to you all!

In this popular, and therefore repeat presentation, DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., will explain the functionality and value delivered by each of the features in the AESE bundle.  Using customer examples gathered from the AESE upgrade presentation delivered earlier this year, Frank will analyze the benefits of moving to AESE for each customer and explain how they made their decision.  Finally Frank will explain how to determine the upgrade path for your organization and what you can do immediately to get an accurate estimate of the cost and best time to move to AESE.    

To register, click here.

IBM introduced the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edtion (AESE) in late 2010, bundling Optim tools, compression and replication for high availability and disaster recovery in with the features in DB2 Enterprise Server Edition.  Current DB2 customers are offered several upgrade options, making AESE an affordable, comprehensive database solution and an alternative to going a la carte.  

In this presentation DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., will explain what each of the features included in the AESE bundle is and what functionality they deliver.  Using customer examples, Frank will analyze the benefits of moving to AESE for each organization and how they evaluated the options and reached a decision.  Finally Frank will explain how to determine the upgrade path for your organization and what you can do immediately to get an accurate estimate of the cost and best time to move to AESE.    For details on the presentation click, “Read More”. 

April 5th, 12:00pm – 1:00pm EDT.    Register here.

Read More…

Many thanks to Frank Fillmore for delivering the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition – aka AESE – presentation on Wednesday.  We had over 70 people join us for the presentation and appreciate the positive feedback.   The link to the presentation file is here; if you have any questions on AESE or the presentation content please feel free to contact me at kim.may@thefillmoregroup.com.

One final note:  Frank is tracking down answers to the questions posed in the Q&A at the end of the session.  Look for them here – soon!

The Fillmore Group had the pleasure of working with the IBM New York Metro team on a DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition upgrade and purchase for an existing DB2 ESE customer and I am working on the IBM “Winwire” document that gets circulated internally at IBM about our successful teaming.  The challenge for me is this:  how do I make it sound difficult?  Buying DB2 AESE made perfect sense for the customer from a strategic/technical perspective, and the IBM pricing was amazing.  Read More…